Funny that the "educators" at the school all knew about this kids problems and all they did was kick him out. Where was the school psychologist in all this? Every school has one. This kid had obvious mental health problems, yet no one apparently reported him to the authorities who could have prevented him from getting a gun permit.

After knowing he was a threat that could not come on campus with a back pack of guns, there were zero security measures taken such as hiring off duty police. The football coach was made the "security guard, " but he was forbidden to carry a weapon.

No weapons were allowed on campus, which fixed nothing at all, unexpectantly.

Short of restoring the teaching of morality and godliness in our society, which is not to happen, we need for everyone to be armed. Yes there would be occasional shootings. But it probably would prevent mass shootings.

Yes, we could completely disarm the public as in Britain. That probably would greatly curtail mass shootings. And it would be perfect for the installation of the dictatorship so fervently desired by our superiors.

Short of restoring the teaching of morality and godliness in our society,

So when exactly did the teaching of morality and godliness in our society actually prevent violence? Did it prevent lynchings by church going men in the south? Did their pious Catholicism prevent the rise of the Italian and Irish Mafias in this country

For the guy bashing the NRA. The NRA is made up of individuals like me, a single mom, who has had her car and house broken into so I carry a gun to even the odds and protect myself and my kids. Yeah, I fight like hell when people want to leave me and my kids defenseless against criminals who see me as a target.

I'm looking at the Telegraph page Ralph L posted.At the top is a cropped pic of the shooter with a handgun. Scroll down and you can see the uncropped pic. The barrel has an orange tip. So it's a toy, probably an Airsoft gun.In the next block of images, he just has knives, the toy gun and a little Christmas tree.The text of the article makes the guy's social media all sound so scary, but that's hindsight. If you look at what is actually posted it wouldn't have seemed very threatening beforehand. It's not the kind of thing where his teachers or somebody should have said, "Oh my God!". His fellow students joking about him being the school shooter was alienating ridicule. I doubt anyone of them thought it was seriously predictive at the time. It's probably very common for kids to say that kind of thing about loners in schools these days.

I could see federal task force focused on trying to minimize school/other spree shootings. TF takes calls/emails from public (students at this school, blogger from Miss. who contacted FBI, teachers/counselors/relatives/social workers/hotel workers/bartenders who think they know of someone who may go postal, etc.).TF would check out tips, check on teenagers setting off home-made bombs (Columbine), check tips against profiles, set up social media tracking, send local cops to interview where appropriate, add tags to NICS so gun purchases refused and/or delayed and TF alerted, track unusual multiple gun buys.Do we already have something like this? If so, have not heard about it and it wouldn't work unless people know about it and how to call/email in tips.I think we now have the AI/other tools to actually do something like this. But the # of people killed annually in spree shootings has averaged (I think) only about 1% of total homicides, so not a budget priority. Given what we've seen over last 12 months, time to make it one. JMHO.

Oh, and Freder, I don't mean evil in the God/Satan way. I mean evil as in a bad person that would not respond to any attempts at diagnosing or "curing" their mental health issues.

There are people in this world who are just plain bad. Call it broken, call it evil, call it psychopathy, call it Satan. It means the same and I don't think at this point in our evolution that we can fix it.

Except that we have declared all schools official fish in barrel zones. Except for token SRO who spend more time rifling through phones looking for sexting or trying to bust kids for pot than actually keeping the school safe.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/tag/weekend-violence/More like two or three weekends - because of their poor gun control (bad shots): "25 Wounded In MLK Day Weekend Shootings""6 Killed, 22 Wounded In Weekend Shootings"

roesch/voltaire said..."Yes arm everybody and turn this country into an NRA OK Correl much to the delight of Putin."

You want to join Trumpit on the moron bench?Once again. For you and the other public sector employee at the top.There are 100 million-MILLION- firearm owners in the US. Between them they own approx. 300 million-MILLION- firearms.Here's the reality of any half assed gun control proposals you might entertain.When just 5% of those 100 million say no there is absolutely nothing you or fedgov.org friends can do.We're an armed country. Get used to it.

Short of restoring the teaching of morality and godliness in our society,

And societies (e.g., Europe, Australia) that are a lot less godly than ours, do not have this problem. And you can't blame minorities for our school shooting problems (like you try to do when it is pointed out that countries with much stricter gun control have fewer murders), almost all school shooters are white males.

We cannot arrest people for their thoughts. We can get them mental help, but just putting them on drugs does not seem to work since so many school shooters were on mental health drugs.

Anti-psychotics only work if the patient takes them, and the only way to ensure that is to confine the patient. Long ago, thanks in part to such entertainments as The Snake Pit (1948) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) this country essentially made psychiatric treatment voluntary. Just about the only way to treat a mentally ill person involuntarily is to find him not guilty by reason of insanity of a capital crime in a court of law.

This was not the case in the not too distant past when the plain fact that the most dangerously ill persons are also the most resistant to voluntary treatment was confronted directly rather than being swept under the carpet as is customary today. It is very common for paranoid psychotics to consider themselves more healthy than most people and especially favored with insights beyond the ken of the hoi polloi. They often resent the silencing of those "angelic" voices which haunt them and stop taking their medication to make the voices return.

We have already banned the possession of guns by the mentally ill and by convicted felons, which may come as a surprise to ARM, but these bans are ineffective. Felons do felonies, which means that the fear of incarnation usually does not deter them from crime, and among the crimes they are not deterred from are unlawful possession of firearms. They are enabled in these crimes by drug traffickers, who usually traffick in other contraband as well. The unlawful possession of firearms by the mentally ill is currently unsoluble because we have instituted laws which make mental illness virtually untreatable.

Erving Goffman's _Asylums_, a very entertaining and informative analysis of the social structure of mental institutions in the 50s and 60s, was responsible for getting involuntary committment banned.

That missed the point of the book. That both patients and staff organized so as to get something out of it was an analysis of any total institution, and of society in general, not something about mental institutions.

The supposed scandal was that staff got something out of it, and so the whole thing was banned.

"The simplest sociological view of the individual and his self is that he is to himself what his place in an organization defines him to be. When pressed, a sociologist modifies this model by granting certain complications : the self may be not yet formed or may exhibit conflicting dedications. Perhaps we should further complicate the construct by elevating these qualifications to a central place, initially defining the individual, for sociological purposes, as a stance-taking entity, a something that takes up a position somewhere between identificaiton with an organization and opposition to it, and is ready at the slightest pressure to regain its balance by shifting its involvement to either direction. It is thus _against something_ that the self can emerge. This has been appreciated by students of totalitarianism ...

I have argued the same case in regard to total institutions. May this not be the situation, however, in free society, too?

Without something to belong to, we have no stable self, and yet total commitment and attachment to any social unit implies a kind of selflessness. Our sense of being a person can come from being drawn into a wider social unit ; our sense of selfhood can arise through the little ways in which we resist the pull. Our status is backed by the solid buildings of the world, while our sense of personality identity often resides in the cracks."

No murderous rage builds when watching skinny blondes in a g-string spinning through the air, so maybe society ought to do a little more encouraging of pairs figure (good golly wasn't hers amazing) skating.

It seems both ignorant and tasteless to claim that "almost all school shooters are white males" while discussing a school shooter named Nicolas (notice: no H) de Jesus Cruz. Maybe he's the second "white Hispanic" in the history of journalism.

Dr Weevil said...Maybe he's the second "white Hispanic" in the history of journalism.

"Hispanic" isn't a race and a "white hispanic" is no big deal: Spaniards are white Hispanics. But the MSM did lie when they called Zimmerman a White-Hispanic because his mother is 'Proudly Afro-Peruvian'.

I think it's high time we bring back public executions. Hang them to an inch of their life, then disembowel them, feeding the city dogs, and quarter them to feed the Lions in the Zoo. Put their heads on spikes at city hall.

I wonder about how to fix this. Better than nothing is a high standard. To reflexively take away others' freedom seems wrong to me.

Would this child have done better in a trade school I wonder -- was he ever given an opportunity, or a choice, or was he just square-pegged into the round hole of today's Educational System? Misfit as a teen is a cruel part to play.

Blogger roesch/voltaire said...Yes arm everybody and turn this country into an NRA OK Correl much to the delight of Putin.

2/15/18, 7:23 AM

Holodomor. Holodomor. Holodomor. Holodomor. Holodomor. No, hysterical bitches, it is not a quote from Game of Thrones. You can't steal the seed grain of an armed populace. The Putins of the world, like the Stalins, Pol Pots, etc, prey on UNARMED populations. Mass shootings of unarmed civilians are frightful in all circumstances. But governments with guns kill the most people of all. Please try to understand that.

That asshole in Florida would have to kill 17 people every day for 274 years to equal the bloody work of the Khmer Rouge. Who were led by college-educated progressives. THAT is why we have the 2nd Amendment. An ultimate defense against murderous government.

KH, I read the Church Report. It seems to me that the spree shootings are increasing and that (1) there is going to be greater call for gun control (which won't work), and (2) we are not going to go back to locking up all mentally unbalanced people (which might help).The Vegas guy killed 69 and injured over 850 - one asshole in 10 minutes generated 10% of the 9-11 casualties (9k). The Columbine kids wanted to kill 400 but their bombs in the cafeteria failed to go off (they still could have shot/killed dozens more if they had wanted to (and maybe set the record) -- since the cops refused to go in -- but offed themselves after about 45 minutes).Fortunately most spree killers are retarded and imbalanced. But I am worried that we are going to see more Vegas events and there will need to be some response.

A good way to fix this is to allow better access to psychological counseling and assistance. If he had been committed to a mental institution, which seemed, based on community sentiment, what was needed; this may have been prevented. Even if he didn't have a gun, the comments by the community suggests he would have eventually killed someone in some manner. If you want to stop such crimes, threat the problem, which is the mental condition of the person.

In a nation of 320 million people there are going to be some crazy and evil ones. There is nothing we can, nor will, do to stop a very small minority of them from doing really bad and evil things such as this most recent shooting. Hurling pre-conceived notions and proposing demonstrably ineffective actions only serves as therapy in the hours and days following such an atrocity.

It would appear that there were no restrictions on entry. Anyone, even a heavily armed individual who had been expelled could just saunter in. You'd think surveillance videos would be in place to show who is approaching the building. Even private companies do not give fired employees access to the premises.

"Funny that the 'educators' at the school all knew about this kids problems and all they did was kick him out. Where was the school psychologist in all this? Every school has one."

Do they? My high school (in Florida) didn't have one. I doubt very much if most, much less all, public high schools in America have school psychologists. Heck, we didn't even have a school nurse, and we were one of the best public high schools in the county.

Anti-psychotics only work if the patient takes them, and the only way to ensure that is to confine the patient.

Not really. Another alternative is mandatory outpatient treatment, with the threat of confinement to ensure compliance. Mandatory monthly injections of long-acting antipsychotics could also be used. I don't know whether there are such things or not, but I would expect that if there were a demand for such medications, the pharmaceutical industry could engineer them in pretty short order.

The real problem is that we seem to lack the will to confront mentally ill people and force them to get treatment. It is extremely difficult for family members, for example, to get someone they think needs help committed to treatment. This probably won't change until many hundreds more are murdered by psychotics.

"Annie C said...The Twin Peaks Bar in Waco, Texas was quite the free fire zone for a bit. But it appears there was some law enforcement shenanigans, as many charges against the bikers are being dropped."

And that two rival motorcycle gangs shooting it out so not really an every day circumstance. Closer to the gang violence we see in Chciago than a bunch of unrelated people carrying guns in the same location...

"I think it's high time we bring back public executions. Hang them to an inch of their life, then disembowel them, feeding the city dogs, and quarter them to feed the Lions in the Zoo. Put their heads on spikes at city hall."

The "A attacked B, which gives State-shtupper C the right to attack D" idiocy. I'm guessing this is a variant on the Argument from Pity fallacy, a favorite of "liberal" boneheads.

Instapundit today has an interesting discussion on the FBI being warned that the shooter was a threat. There are amusing comments on the theme, "Hey, don't bother the FBI with this nonsense. They're busy helping the attempted coup."

Recent drug bust in Poughkeepsie, NY, 16 arrests, 14 from Poughkeepsie. In addition to the drugs, guns were confiscated! I'm waiting for Governor Cuomo and legislature Democrats to explain how criminals obtained all those guns with the SAFE act in effect that hinders us law abiding citizens from obtaining guns, and a permitting process for handguns that in some state jurisdictions ensure only the politically connected get the permits.

Gun control laws don't stop criminals from obtaining guns. Just as criminal laws don't stop criminals from committing crimes. And drug laws don't stop druggies from using drugs. The difference between them is that gun laws are specifically designed to severely hamper the rights of citizens to obtain and purchase arms, and do nothing, absolutely nothing, to reduce crime.

You can't arrest someone for thinking, but you can for terroristic threats- and you can definitely monitor them closely in such instances. This is going to be a big black eye for law enforcement and the FBI if the allegations that they were warned by multiple parties about Cruz, and that the social media accounts where he made these direct threats prove true (I don't know they are true, but it looks increasingly likely they are).

I've seen the screenshots of his iirc youtube account showing his threat that the fbi "supposedly" investigated. If that was not the red flag, then there is no red flag. Big black eye is the understatement of the year. At least we know there is no corruption at the fbi....

I also suggest that nationwide media coverage of a local event only encourages more of these events.

It was nauseating watching that recent press conference as each and every speaker, save maybe the medical docs, seemed more than pleased to bask in the bloody limelight. Pam Bondi is especially good at this. No likey Pam.

On today's Instapundit there's a link to an interesting article about how there were once guns in schools and yet no mass shootings. (And apparently few one-off shootings.) Mr. Smart Ass might want to crawl out of the "liberal" Cocoon and give it a look-see.

Mr. Smart Ass also doesm't know that the biggest, bloodiest gun-toter in history is the State, so beloved by "liberals." One academic, R. J. Rummel, has made a career out of studying the subject, and his estimate of "democide" (his term for "murder by government"), just in the 20th Century alone, is staggering. I forget the figure but it's in the millions, if not billions. And that's not counting war casualties.

Let's see, the students and school officials knew Cruz posed a potential danger. The FBI had his name as an aspiring "professional school shooter." At the time he purchased his weapon there were federal laws restricting sale to mentally ill people. What went wrong here?

Maybe the gunphobes running the schools need to focus on protecting students instead of waiting for the passage of ineffectual laws. Maybe the FBI needs to focus on dealing with reported threats instead of phony political investigations.

Has there been any evidence shown that this perp was mentally ill? Is it assumed that someone who shoots lots of people at a school is mentally ill? People with antisocial personality disorders are not legally insane nor can they be successfully treated [yes, there is plenty of evidence]. As in A Clockwork Orange, there are questions about violent behavior that we still can't answer.

Freder F. doesn't like the idea of teaching virtue and vice in our public schools. He apparently sees this as teaching religion. If he took the time to education himself he would learn that our concepts of virtue and vice originated with the ancient Greek philosophers and not religion. If a growing number of children do not get any moral instruction from their parents or from religious institutions, where will they get their notions of right or wrong? From the street where it is easy to conclude that justice is nothing but the will of the stronger? Or from that amorphous thing called the "self" that invents "rules" for its behavior that feed its insatiate will to power?

I understand that the inclination to "do something" is strong after events like this, I really do. But will more laws help? Will banned armaments bring an end? I lean towards an answer of No. I think it's sad that the answer is no. But there it is.

Really? What was going on when I ordered my first Bible through Longfellow Elementary, a public school, so I could attend Bible class every Friday afternoon. Or when we spent an occasional moment in prayer for our troops overseas or sick classmates.

Like most SecProgs, Cookie believes history begins on the occasion of leftist landmarks like Engel v. Vitale or Murray v. Curlett.

R|V is just shoveling the mouth diarrhea of Adam Schiff-ty, who claimed last week that Putin is all in favor of the 2nd Amendment. Schiff-ty spewed his droppings to divert from the fact that he's a corrupt, lying piece of pig shit.

And also because he knows dullards like R/V will unthinkingly parrot anything he says, any stupid theory he dreams up. If Schiff-ty claims Trump is sending sooper sekrit messages to Putin via his red neckties, Adam's idiot fan club will believe him.

Why is it you never see these mass shootings at parochial schools yet so often at public?

Is it a better class of student? Is it a more caring set of parents? Or is it the fact parochial schools have GOD in their schools while public ones do their best to erase God from their teachings?

How about the answer being all three. More caring parents, and thus a better class of student, tend to be willing to send their children to schools where morals are taught. And morals come from religion (where there is no vote on what is 'moral' and what is not. Where there is no 'choices' that none are good or bad.)

We need to reform our snakepits we call 'public schools'. They used to have prayer in such schools. They used to read passages from the Christian Bible over the PA system once a day. They used to teach morals in schools. Nowdays it seems it's all about 'transgender rights'. You cannot even wear a Christian t-shirt to schools these days!

Think about it folks. Mass shootings at parochial schools just don't happen (except at St. Mary's Parochial School in Newburgh, N.Y. in 1891 and Bremen school shooting in 1913!)

On today's Instapundit there's a link to an interesting article about how there were once guns in schools and yet no mass shootings. (And apparently few one-off shootings.) Mr. Smart Ass might want to crawl out of the "liberal" Cocoon and give it a look-see.

Ah yes, a look back at the halcyon 1980's, where every school had a rifle club (bullshit, I graduated in 1979 from high school in the suburbs of Chicago, and there were no rifle clubs), people respected guns and morality prevailed.

The only way to fix this is to change our culture. Which takes time and a ridiculous amount of sustained effort by millions of people. How long did it take after the 1964 Surgeon General's report for smoking to become uncool?

The culture of violence that we currently have has been evolving at least since the demise of the Hayes Code (and I would argue that the seeds were planted even before the Civil War). It would take decades to roll it back. And we haven't even started.

etbass said: Looks like we are headed for metal detectors in all schools and armed guards. My granddaughter's high school has a police office within and city police are there during school hours.

We have removed God from public schools and replaced him with police.

I went to high school in 1966-1969. We had a uniformed and armed school cop, a member of the local police force, on campus. He mostly busted kids for trying to cut school or smoking in the bathrooms. But he was there when race riots broke out and called in support. It's not exactly a new idea.